


Pride

by Harlow R (harlowrd)



Series: Zutara Month 2012 [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Zutara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harlowrd/pseuds/Harlow%20R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, you have to be the one who adapts. Written for Day 7 of Zutara Month 2012 - "Pride"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

When the moon was high and she couldn’t sleep, deliciously tired beside him but unnaturally restless, Katara sometimes wondered what the hell she was doing.

He couldn’t follow her wherever. He’d said he would, if he could; that he didn’t care where she went – _if he could_ , he would go. But he _couldn’t_.

So she would have to stay. She would have to be the one to adapt.

Something inside her screamed with indignation – her pride, she knew. _How can you just accept this? He probably just expects you to do it because you’re a woman. The entire world expects you to be the one to adapt._ It made a bitterness rise up in her throat, a familiar sense of injustice.

It wasn’t the case here. The world expected her to wrap her life around his, but she knew he didn’t. She knew that every day he was terrified she would chose her own freedom, because he was powerless to follow and couldn’t blame her if she did. She knew it was entirely up to her.

Her pragmatic side asked her what exactly she wanted to do. Go back to the South Pole? And do what, teach Waterbending to the new generations of benders, perhaps? Would she even have a voice there, politically, now that over half its population came from the Northern tribe? Would she eventually settle down, have kids? With whom? She doubted she would be happy with any of the available men there, considering they all came from the North. Their expectations on her as a woman and as a wife simply wouldn’t suit her. She would insist on teaching both combative and healing Waterbending to all benders, regardless of gender, and she was sure that was not going to go over very well. (In fact, she reminded herself, she would have to find a way to make sure all Waterbenders had access to all techniques anyway, whether she stayed in the South Pole or not.)

The truth was that she didn’t have a well-defined life plan. All she knew was that she wanted to dedicate herself to her bending, learning all there was to be learned and maybe even developing some techniques of her own, eventually – because bending was a lot of who she was. She definitely wanted to help the world achieve peace, harmony, and equality. She wanted to stay as close to her friends as possible. And yes, she wanted to have a family of her own.

Those were all things she could do from the Fire Nation. Her bending was wherever she was; she might have to invite teachers over, or to leave temporarily to learn from them, but ultimately one’s bending work was done alone. The Fire Nation would be central to all political negotiations, and if she wanted to participate, being there was pretty much a requirement, at least in the beginning. It was the reason why she hadn’t left yet, in fact. And for the time being, all her friends were still here. Even if they eventually left, chances were the Fire Nation would be closer to wherever they went to than the South Pole.

As for having a family…well. The six of them were already a family, true, but…she wanted a husband, and eventually children of her own as well. She turned on her side to look at his sleeping face beside her. It was strange to think of their relationship that far ahead; they hadn’t even discussed anything like that. And yet…it was suddenly clear to her there was nowhere else they could be headed. It wasn’t a bad realization; quite the opposite…but it was rather heavy. If they ever ended things, it would be for some specific reason, like if she decided she didn’t want to stay in the Fire Nation. If not – if they stayed together – they were in it for good.

Because of the way he listened, she realized. The way he listened, and understood, and accepted who she was. He never made her feel inadequate, and it had taken her a while to notice what that felt like. It was subtle, but it was there: everyone else, as much as they loved her, sometimes made very clear that they didn’t care for several of her qualities. That was okay; she didn’t care for many of theirs, either, and it didn’t make her love them any less. But it stung, sometimes, to have it thrown in your face that the way you are rubs them the wrong way. Zuko had never done that to her, and she still remembered the shock she had felt when she’d realized it. He was just…always there. At first it seemed like an impersonal quality, like maybe he was just unassuming with everybody – and, in a way, he was. But the closer the two of them grew, the sweeter and gentler and more accepting he became with her; soon, it was with him that she felt safest, and didn’t even know why.

She knew she’d never find that anywhere else. That she’d never find someone that made her feel _this way_ ; they might love her, sure, but…not like this. The more he showed her of the real him, the more she loved what she saw. And the more vulnerable he let himself be in her presence, the more she discovered that they fit perfectly together; that he needed her and that she needed him. Not to live, maybe, but to be truly happy and fulfilled in this lifetime.

So of course she would stay, Katara thought, running gentle fingers through his hair. It might bother her a little that her relationship wasn’t going to look like the perfect example of progressiveness from the outside, at least superficially, but there were more important things to think about. She might have to wear a Fire Nation crown and be pressured to have babies and be looked down upon by her tribe. But in reality she would be freer to be exactly who she wanted than in any other situation. Because being who she wanted included being with him.


End file.
